Of course, what happened to them the last time they saw the Saints should stand as plenty of object lesson, as if a potential playoff berth being possible wasn’t enough. Coming off their stunning win at Green Bay in Week 9, they came back here and played a flat game against the Saints, losing 17-7. Then they bounced back to beat the Falcons, then they lost to the 49ers, before coming back home in a short week and beating the Rams.
As Canales builds this team, he’s hoping to avoid those kinds of swings and develop the consistency that comes with time.
“That’s the greatest challenge for all of us across the league,” Canales said. “It’s the ability to refocus, the ability to take it one week at a time and one day at a time, because that process leads to good results and making sure you capture those days. No day is less important than the other. We have to make sure we go through a great process. Everyone’s focused, locked in, and finishing up with the weight room session after practice.
“It’s like, hey, the day is not over, there’s great work in there too, and how you do anything is how you do everything. And that’s got to be the mentality, and that’s the sign of maturity that I’m looking for from this group is to continue to just build off of wins, to build off of, OK, now we have to go back to work, let’s correct the things we need to correct, let’s look at the things that work for us well, let’s try to continue to lean into those things, but also just making sure that we have the right focus for the task at hand.”
Again, with the division title “right there in front of them,” focus should not be an issue.